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Monday, May 29, 2017

Failure of Dhanush Artillery Guns: A Big Blow for Indian Army!

Dhanush Artillery Gun displayed on The Republic Day in New Delhi. India

On
26 January 2017, on the Indian Republic day, Indians displayed Dhanush Artillery
guns a developed form of Bofors guns. These guns were said to have created a new history in the artillery leaving behind the world artillery guns manufacturers. Two weeks ahead of the show of the guns,
Indian media was praising the guns; Indian media was claiming that
Swedish made Bofors guns have been reinvented by India creating a new history
of the Artillery.

In
March 1986, when India purchased Bofors guns from Sweden, it was posed like
that Indian Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi has done a great service to the
Indians because he succeeded to buy Bofors guns from Sweden despite of
opposition of USA, France and Germany. The deal was for 410 guns of 155 mm
diameter for 1.4 billion dollars. When these guns reached India, a great event
was organized to make these guns part of Indian army in which Swedish Foreign
Minister participated along with a big delegation. Indian Prime Minister was
the Chief Guest of the ceremony.

The
celebrations of the purchase of these guns have not ended, on 16 April 1987, a
video report was leaked in the Sweden claiming that Indian Prime Minister
Rajeev Gandhi along with Indian Defense Minister and Secretary for Defense
along with Indian Army Generals received commission for the deal of purchase of
Bofors guns. The news was reported in detail by The Hindu claiming that the
journalist reporting the corruption has the 350 documents as evidence of
kickbacks received by Indians. According to the report the details contained
the procedure, and place of payment of commission. The report became a big
financial scandal. The discussions started in the Sweden that why such a big
amount of 9.9 million dollars was paid to Indians as commission?

Dhanush-155 mm artillery gun. Indian army reportedly rejected the gun and have declared the trials as Total Failure.

Gandhi’s
govt. succeeded in India to suppress the analysis and new reports on this
scandal. But the scandal continued in Sweden; during investigations it was
revealed that not only Bofors paid the commission to Indians but other
countries as well even within the Sweden. On the reports of the investigations
from Sweden, Indian govt. black listed Bofors for bad reputation in order to
safe the image of Indian govt. among Indians. Congress and Rajeev Gandhi wanted
to keep the commission.

In
May 1991, Rajeev Gandhi was killed in a suicide attack by Tamil woman belonging
to Tamil Tigers of Tamil Nadu but the commission he received from the purchase
of Bofors guns did not leave him. When BJP came into power, it not only created
hard times for Congress for corruption, accounts of Rajeev Gandhi in Swiss
banks and started working to bring back the black money. BJP had two goals;
defame political party for kickbacks and corruption and take the money in the
undeclared Swiss accounts of Rajeev Gandhi.

Dhanush is an improved desi version of Bofors. It has higher calibre, has a longer range of 38 km.This is the first successful Make in India. Indian army claimed

After
1999 Kargil war, retired and on duty Generals of Indian army succeeded to
convince BJP that due to the Bofors guns, Indian army succeeded in taking back
the control of Kargil from Pakistan. So Indian govt. removed Bofors from black
list starting further deals. BJP decided to upgrade Bofors guns keeping in view
the defense needs of Indian army. It was decided that guns would be
manufactured in India. In June 2015, when the deal for the production of guns
was started it was decided that at the cost 140 million rupees per gun, 414
guns will be manufactured till 2020. The purpose was to show the world that
India has become independent in manufacturing weapons.

The Bofors howitzer on display in Deolali, India

Indian
Defense Research and Development Organization, Indian Dianalux, Indian Earth
Movers, Indian Electronics, Indian Ordinance Board, private groups like Tata
Group, Mahindra Group, Reliance Anil DheruBhai Ambani Group, Goraj etc. were
also included in the manufacturing of the guns. When the production of guns
started, 9 guns were handed over to 14th Corps Odhampur under Indian
Northern Command in January 2017. On the
Democracy day it was told that Bofors guns range was only 27 kilometers while
Indian Dhanush range is 38 kilometers. It should be kept in mind that 14th
Corps was established after Kargil war. That is why this corps is given much
importance in Indian defense groups. The Dhanush guns were showed of proudly
however when these guns were put into test in the Himalayan mountains their
flaws came to light.

Scams in India What exactly was the Bofors Scandal and who were the key players involved

One
is that while firing the shell, gun gets extraordinary jerk moving the front
end of the gun due to which the shell fails to reach the target. Although the
jerk during the fire of artillery guns is a routine but the length of guns
barrel and speed of the artillery shell is calculated in such a way that shell
reaches its target. The second fault is that when gun’s barrel recoils after
firing the shell, the mechanism to suppress the recoil using mixture of gas and
oil fails as its seals blasts away due to which gun becomes useless to fire the
second shell. Bofors guns used the Russian made recoil system but India wanted
to be proud of MADE IN India.

Engineers
visited the field on the faults identified by 14th Corps, they were
unable to solve the problems and asked 14th Corps to return the
guns. 14th Corps told their commander Lt General Punnu that Dhanush
guns are useless which is being termed as a big blow for Indian army. Although
Indian Defense Minister silent and Indian media is not giving any reports as
well; One should ask Indian Army Chief that Indians who have failed to
manufacture an artillery gun than what is the status of his threats to
Pakistan???